Pay Attention (please)
by yuuki24688
Summary: How do you tell your mother, the woman who gave you life, that you want to die? Depressed!Hinata Shouyou
1. It's not your fault (stop)

**[TRIGGER WARNING]:** Depression, Self-Hatred, Self-Harm, Anorexia and Implied Suicide is present within this fanfiction. If any of these mentioned catergories bother you, please click away. You have been warned.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Haikyuu!

* * *

 _How do you tell your mother,_

 _The woman who gave you life_

 _That you want to die?_

* * *

Pay no attention to the white lines the litter his arms, a shade lighter than his tan complexion, strategically placed in different directions. They streak across his toned skin, overlaying one another in a desperate struggle to outdo the deeper, burying old scars and cut out words beneath. Those words are usually large – angry they once were – screaming words that still repeat in his head, slash over slash to embed those words deep, although none can match the depth and the darkness of his own mind.

Pay no attention to the similar lines that peek out of fabric when he soars, those lines wrapping around his stomach, hips and thighs. It is only for an instant but they are there, for the next few years at least, marking him like it is his own sick brand. They are newer and fresher – the new place he invests – those straight cuts lining up and wide as far as he dares.

You don't see them but you cannot be faulted; he has years to master the art of hiding while you, have just started to know him.

You do not see past his flaming orange hair that can light up the darkest of the night, the colour glowing embers of a newly lit fire. It is _warm_ , like his brown eyes, the optic organ that crinkles sweetly ever so often, displaying his contented countenance. You cannot see past his blinding smile, one that rivals a thousand suns in intensity, so genuine, unadorned and carefree that you are trapped within it like the rest.

You look forward to seeing his smile – taking slight pleasure in being able to make him laugh even – even though it is almost his default reaction.

Hinata Shouyou is larger than life in everything he does, his exuberance contagious such that even the most brooding are not spared. You cannot help the fact that your lips curl whenever he laughs, spirits lifting to the sound of his rising octave because it is honest and without mockery unlike some other. He is undoubtedly the brightest star when he tries - the beacon of light – standing against all his adversities despite his short stature; confident as he stands next to you on court with a hungry grin, head tilted upwards to the skies and eyes following the ball that moves in wide arcs.

He is awe-inspiring with his endless faith, the way he would jump with his eyes closed (although they are open now), knowing that you would get him the ball no matter what. He does not understand how difficult that feat is, but _you_ know, and he gives you hope that maybe there is someone that can match up to you and your instinctive madness.

He is happiness personified and you are thankful for his presence on the team. As the pillar of support, you are expected to keep morale high but you are only human as well. There are times when you can't lift you head but he is there; shouting that 'we can do it' and 'one more', giving you hope when you once thought it might all be lost. You are grateful for him and you try to tell him that by ruffling his hair and keeping up with his high fives – literally – knowing that your wild child loved such gestures.

But in the happy front he crafts, you forget that stars can burn out. That their light is finite and they might not be real and merely twinkling illusions. You cannot be faulted for it – stop blaming yourself for not realizing earlier – because this act he puts on spans across years such that it has become a second nature to him.

You do not realize that volleyball is his escape. It's hard to when he truly loves the sport, loves the sting of on his palm when he executes a good spike, the feeling of the ball beneath his calloused fingertips and the satisfaction of shocked expressions from the apex of his leap. All this is true – you know it because he shrieks about it constantly with glassy, awed eyes – but you do not know that there were so many more reasons for it.

He loves volleyball because he thinks of nothing but volleyball when he plays, its mind-numbing and automatic. It's just getting on to the next play when the previous one was over, caught within the tides of adrenaline and the rush of information – serves, receives, setter, run, spike, rinse and repeat – with no time for self-pity. It is a glorious feeling to not be hounded, to focus solely on one thing when his thoughts usually ran rampant. For once, he does feel _free_ , just like the times he can spike without interference. He loves the idea of having not think, even if it was for three sets.

It leaves him aching and sore in the end of it, and he finds that slumber tends to claim him easier. He doesn't get nightmares so often when he's extremely tired because while his mind hates him resting, his bodily needs tend to supersede everything else.

However, with his love, it brings about a whole new range of thoughts.

You do not see the downward slant of his lips whenever he fails at something, the momentary change hidden by his head facing the ground. The soft gnashing of teeth doesn't reach your ears, nor does the scratching of skin as he marks out the count for each failure. Those scratches would translate to new cuts each day but you do not know that since they are scattered beneath fabric, as far as he dares.

You do not realize why he likes to come to practice early and leave late. It is not just devotion; when there are lesser people in the changing room, he feels more at peace; lesser staring eyes, lesser observant people and that is what he wants. It means that there are lesser people that will and can figure out his destructive habits. It is also the same reason why you do not notice the fact that he tends to wear shorts beneath his school pants and you don't really ever see his hips, thighs or boxers that were polka-dotted with dark red at times.

You do not know that the times where he is late is not because he overslept but rather the fact that he didn't sleep. Those were one of the worse days for him and he plays off his lack of accuracy with his grogginess. You are mostly deceived by said act since you have no other explanation to say otherwise and you think that he has no reason to lie about such a thing. He is usually honest and horrible at lying but that is only so because you don't know his perpetual web of lies that you are already trapped in.

You do not see the orange bottle of pills he buries deep within his bag nor the times he pops it in his mouth with the guise of a cough. Being the heavy sleeper you might be, you do not hear the strangled sob that he holds back while he is curled under his futon or the short shrieks he makes when he wakes up to a nightmare. You think that he drools but if you looked closer, those are tear stains; salty liquid that once trailed from dead eyes down mauve cheeks, tears he will never let you see him shed. He often has chapped lips such that it bleeds when he grins too wide and you chastise him to drink more water, although subconsciously, you know he drinks the same amount, if not more water than you.

You think he likes the sun rise and he goes to the rooftops since they are the best place to see them but in actuality, he stare down at the ground, five stories high, and wonder what it is like to plummet and crash. He wonders if he can finally fly when he jumps off and there are times where he almost does, if not for you going up there to call him back. You do not question why he goes to the rooftops even when it is the middle of the day or late at night.

You do not know the penknife he hides within his yellow hoodie pockets. You do not know that his bruised knuckles do not come from volleyball or from fighting his partner. You do not know that sometimes his toilet breaks were used to throw up the food he cannot keep down in his disgust for himself and that motion sickness was just an easy excuse. (A lot of things were easy excuses.)

Sometimes, you like to make scathing, sarcastic remarks that you don't mean (it is a norm for you), but you are not aware of the fact that he actually agrees with the things you say. You see him brush it off or fight back with enraged squawks, but this _anger_ never quite reaches his brown eyes. You do not know that he ruminates over those same words in the dead of the night, adding them to the list he already has, whispering those words to himself, one by one. If you had known earlier, you know that you would never have said them. Hinata Shouyou may be annoying and you want to swat him down at times, but you would never intentionally hurt a teammate, your _friend_ , and you regret much of what you have said.

But you cannot be faulted for not observing because he hides his weakness too well.

(And you feel useless because you were supposed to observant and yet, it was not enough.)

Another thing that you do not know is that despite all you don't see, **you** , are still his hope.

On days he doesn't feel like eating, you make sure the entire team goes to the Foothill Store and you treat them to meat buns. He cannot reject them under your watchful eyes and the meat buns quickly become one of his favourite foods that he wants to keep down. It is not the taste that draws him in but rather the sentiment that you have in treating the entire team and you make him feel cared for. He holds the brown paper bag in his hands for a moment longer than the rest before indulging in the treat, feeling the warmth of the steamed bun permeate into his skin and sink into his heart.

You do not know that it is your incessant texting, your worries about him travelling along the mountain trial late at night that stops him from swerving his bike off the pavement and onto the road, so he can roll down the hill to his death. The constant blinking and vibrating of his phone is what keeps him on track, willing himself to keep going forward to reach home. It is because of you that he wakes up every day, even when he doesn't want to. You have become his motivation to see a new day with excitement rather than dread.

You do not know that your pro-activeness to seek him out and make him laugh makes him feel a little less alone. His laughs are genuine whenever you make a joke, no matter how lame they are, and even for a little, he thinks he might be okay if you are around. He loves how over-the-top you are, raucous, hyped and crazy, such that he would willingly join in your cheers and bask in the zest that you create. You became one of his better reasons to smile.

Your small compliments and affectionate gestures counteract against the negativity that swarms him. You tell him he is improving day after day and he glows whenever you do it and he lives to meet your growing expectations of him. You were one of the people that he never wants to disappoint, so he keeps trying for your sake.

When you keep tossing to him, no matter how bad he was at the start, you do not know how much it meant to him, that he was worth your time of the day and strength. You were harsh on him, but he knows that it was for his own good and he is truly grateful that you did not give up on him even when he was close to giving up on himself. He tells you that he will make you invincible; you make him feel that way as well, and he thought that you would be worth fighting for and with. (He was right.) You give him the will to improve so that he can stand on the summit right next to you. _You_ , against all odds, make him want to stay.

You make him rise from the abyss that he has been in for so long but you do not consider what would happen when he crashes down again.

It is incredibly easy to fall back down but agonizingly hard to get back up.

But it is not your fault.

(Please stop blaming yourself.)

It is the reason why you do not know how to feel when Takeda-sensei gathers of you for a meeting on a stormy morning one week after Inter-High, grim-looking and teary eyed. Coach Ukai was strangely absent but you hear the faint banging of walls outside the gymnasium.

Your anticipation is rising as you heard a small sob.

"Hinata was admitted to the hospital yesterday," Takeda-sensei says but his voice was weirdly hoarse. You don't know why that is the first detail you pick out but you have a feeling it might be important.

"He collapsed late last night from the lack of nourishment and was diagnosed with borderline anorexia, which is an eating disorder. His mother thought—"he sucked in a breath, throat clogged—"thought it would be pivotal for you to know that he was dealing with depression as well."

 _Depression_.

You go numb as the tears stream down your cheeks. Some of you try to hide it by turning away or looking down but you cannot stop the tears.

You wish you realized it earlier.

But you didn't.

And you start faulting yourself for it.

You don't realize how much Hinata Shouyou meant to you – and the team - until he tried to starve himself.

* * *

I like to break shiny things and Hinata Shouyou is shiny.

If you have mental illnesses or eating disorders, PLEASE seek professional help. Don't suffer alone.

I don't guarantee the 100% effectiveness of said help, and you might not get the therapist or treatment method that is right for you the first time round, but PLEASE try. It will help in a long run, that I can promise. f you are alone and you are feeling suicidal, please contact your local hotline.

Your life is worth living. Have a good day :)


	2. Loving you broken (forever)

Step into the shoes of the Mother and Sister who love Hinata Shouyou.

 **Disclaimer** : I do not own Haikyuu!

* * *

 _Loving You Broken (Forever)_

* * *

From the day of his conception to the day you will inevitably die, you will love Hinata Shouyou.

It is not something dictated by fate or law – it just _is_.

You will love the foetus that you harboured within you for nine months, carefully nurturing it even with your odd cravings of rice and soy sauce even if it was two in the morning. You have loved and always will love the baby that was handed to you by the nurse, _your firstborn child_ that you kiss on the forehead and caress his odd tuff of orange hair. You will love him even if he cries late night, begging for your attention, even when you are sleep-deprived.

You love him and you catalogue everything and anything, from his smallest achievements to his biggest ones. (Every achievement to you is huge and you are content with having memories of it.) You are present when he first opens his eyes as you feed him – your reflecting amber eyes bright – when he says his first word, takes his first steps and loses his first tooth.

Maternity becomes of you and you love every moment of it.

You are always there when he falls and cries, kissing his bruises and telling him he will be okay. You will be the person he approaches when he has questions (Why why why) or when he just needs someone to babble to. He will always run up to you (sometimes falling, you accept you have a clumsy child), where ever you are in the house or outside, clinging onto your leg, begging to hugged or carried, constantly smiling at you and you think he is one of the most precious things in the world. You thank your lucky stars for giving you Hinata Shouyou because you cannot think of having a better child than him.

He has the cutest and most genuine laugh you have ever heard and you see to it that he always does. You blow raspberries on his stomach and tickle his sides, you buy him toys that make him giggle and you tell him bedtime stories of heroes and knights. You are his mother and he is your child, and you will love him ever-so-intensely until the day you die.

Hinata Shouyou becomes your second Sun – like his namesake and your husband – and you give him the name of _Shouyou_ because you want to see him soar to the heavens where he deserves to be. Your son deserves the best in the world and you want nothing less for him, and you want him to be loved and cherished. Your husband calls you ambitious and you tell him that he was just being petty and jealous that he was replaced by his son, even though your heart belongs to both of them equally. (He gets back at you by bringing _his son_ out for a weekend without telling you. You sent him to sleep on the couch for a week when they get back although you laugh when he gets into the bed in the middle of the night. "Damn charmer," you mutter.)

You will love Hinata Shouyou no less when you have a daughter; you just make room for another child and you don't know what you would do without three of the most important people to you in the world.

But as hard as you might try, life is not like the fairy tales that you tell your children. It is not sweet like the chocolate that they pester you to buy, it is not as musical as the sound of your family's collective laughter. There is evil in the world and there are some that you cannot protect him from.

There was one fateful night where you break down, holding _your boy, your child, you sweet tortured child_ close, crying as his bloodied arms stain your clothes.

You walked into his room in the last hours of the day because you heard sobbing, and the sight of him holding a sharp blade to his arm and carefully cutting lines will forever be branded into your retinas.

He looks up to you with dead amber eyes, now lifeless brown, and you start sobbing.

"Shouyou, why?"

You start questioning if you failed as a mother. You move forward to hug him so tight and yet so gently like you are afraid he will break. You start asking _why_ you couldn't keep him happy, why you hadn't noticed earlier and why he was doing this to himself. (You will question yourself with each relapse but you try not to show it.)

You have no answers and neither does he, so you just keep hugging him for the next minute. He didn't raise his arms to hug you back and that fact alone breaks you even more. He is uncharacteristically silent and you are as well, you let your child's tears and blood soak your own shirt as you run back the memories of the past.

When you patch him up with bandages, you count the number of cuts he has inflicted on himself. With each one, your tears fall even faster until you can barely even see what you are doing. But you are attuned to the shape and size of his arms because you always hold them and you manage it either way. Your questions are still spinning and you don't know what to say.

So you say nothing as you bring up his patched up arms and kiss the entire length of it slowly, lips brushing rough cloth, hoping it can get better. He trembles under your touch and you know he is crying again. It is a realization that you don't need any answers right now.

You tell him the line you always say to him in the morning and night:

He is your Sun, your day, even if it is broken. He will be the child that you will love forever, your flesh and blood, unconditionally, no matter what he goes through. You will love him through thick and thin, blood and tears, and until the end of the world.

That is one fact you are certain of – not dictated by law or nature – _it just is._

"I love you, Shouyou, don't ever forget that."

For the first time that night, he moves forward and hugs the circumference of your waist. His fingertips finally touch at the small of your back and you pull him closer, holding him flush against your body, willing every fibre of it to give him the love you have always held for him. You wipe away his tears and kiss him better, you mutter sweet nothings and love in his ears. You don't know how long you stay like that but you decide that time is inconsequential and he _needs_ you. You will always think he deserves the best and you will always try to give him that.

He eventually falls asleep in your arms, puffy-eyed but with the smallest of smiles and you decide it is a victory, even if it was a grain of salt in the whole scheme of things.

You drag him to the therapist the next day even though he doesn't want to go. You sit next to him, holding his hand as he seeks professional help, your reassuring warmth squeezing his hand ever-so-often to remind him that you will always be there for him and he was not alone in this. It is all you can offer when you hardly understand (you don't think you ever will) but you pray that it will be enough for him.

You make sure he takes his medicine every day, reminding him so much that he gets sick of it. He says nothing when you take away his sharp objects and lock them up. You tell him that you are always there to listen without judgement and that if the therapist is being mean, you will wage war on the department on your behalf. He laughs – softly albeit bitterly – and tells you that would be counterproductive and you reply that he only deserves the best.

He starts opening up to you slowly and you see bits of the charming and bright personality again. You still find small victories in that and you make it an achievement. He hates pictures now but nothing will ever stop you from documenting them and if the smile he hides is anything to go by, he doesn't really mind. He may roll his eyes at you and whine and you may stick your tongue out to match his pettiness. It is at that moment where you think that things may not perfect but that is alright.

You will always love Hinata Shouyou. Even when the Earth tilts off its axis, even when meteors fall and burn everything to the ground, even when he is depressed or cutting himself. You will love him no less even if he doesn't love himself. You will love enough for both of you at the darkest times and you will hold him when he doesn't feel like getting up. You will love him and you will utter those words on your last dying breath – you are sure you will – because that fact won't change. It is the constant you revolve around and no disaster can ever do anything to alter that.

You love _your child_ , Hinata Shouyou, and you will see that he soars to the heavens because he deserves the place in the sun. Nothing more, nothing less.

 **Hinata Natsu**

You love your brother.

(Shou-you, you try to say, but it sounds more like Shu-Yu because you can't really speak well.)

You think of him as your hero, the knight in shining armour that will fight those imaginary dragons for you and you are his princess. He tells you that much when he indulges you in anything you want to play unless he has too much undone homework and you love him for it.

You wouldn't mind marrying him (a fact that displeases tou-chan) and you quickly decide that you will follow your brother to the ends of the world. You love Hinata Shouyou because he makes you feel safe, he is home and he will be your eternal protector (he promised and he never breaks his promises). He is the person you seek when you have nightmares, your confidant when a boy in your class makes your heart go 'GWAAAAHHH' (you still wonder why his face scrunches up whenever you tell him that and why the boy starts avoiding you soon after) and the role model you will look up to.

You know he isn't perfect and he is not the brightest crayon in the box (kaa-chan said that) but you love him either way.

You know he loves you as well since he peppers kisses on your forehead whenever you cuddle up with him after a bad day and he always checks on you before he goes into his own room. He ties your hair with scrunchies (he is not very good at it), tells you funny stories about his day and lets you watch him practice volleyball. And also, he tells you he loves you every day. He never fails to tell you that and you will never fail to tell him back.

But still, you can't help but wonder why there were lines running across his arms and why they looked so angry and painful sometimes. Your brother tries to hide them with long sleeves and pants but you notice them anyway – it was kind of hard not to when you live with him. You see those lines peeking out from his shorts and below the sleeves when you roll them up, and you trace them one by one and ask him if it hurts.

He shakes his head and he looks really sad when he tells you they don't hurt anymore. You stop asking after that because you don't like to see him being so sad. You want him to be happy and smiling, like the times where you play rope with him.

So you ask kaa-chan instead.

You don't miss the odd expression that flickers across her face when you do and you wonder if you stumbled onto something you shouldn't have. Kaa-chan has this painful expression on her face that you don't see very often and you think that she might be hurting more than your brother. You feel like crying but you don't.

You watch as she turns off the fire and approaches you, kneeling so that she is at your height.

"You know how heroes battle monsters right?"

You nod and confidently say you do, rambling on about the epic adventures that you were told at bed time. There are mythical creatures that fly in the skies and overpowered warriors that stand against adversity and you describe in detail how everything plays out. Your brother stars in most of them, unsurprisingly.

Your mother laughs and pinches your cheek when you are finally done recounting _everything_ and she continues to explain. "You see, sometimes heroes like Shou-chan get injured as well when they are fighting these monsters and they leave marks. They don't go away but they are there to tell you that you are strong because you won."

Your eyes glimmer. "Uwah, I knew Shou-chan was strong! He always wins against the monsters in the stories and it is always like pwaaah or raaaaaar!" But you pause after realizing something. "Why is Shou-chan sad when he won those monsters, though?"

She tells you gently that sometimes there are a lot of monsters out there and even while your brother is amazing, he gets tired and sad sometimes from all the battles. You mull about it for a bit and decides that kaa-chan might have a lot of monsters she needs to fight against like your brother. Maybe someday you can help them as well.

You make it your mission to cheer them up because that was what princesses do.

Whenever you roll up his sleeves, you bring a bright orange marker and draw smiley faces on his arms. You ask kaa-chan to wrap his bento in smiley cats because you know he loves cats and you want him to smile like the cat and you want him to keep smiling. You offer him chocolates (although you are begrudging) whenever he looks down and you stay in his room with your colouring book even though he doesn't feel like talking. You just stay there, occasionally leaning against him and count the pockmarks on the wall with him.

When his lines are angrier and red, you take the opportunity to draw butterflies and more smiley faces in the brightest colours. You write 'I love you' (terrible handwriting) in between some of them. You start hugging him longer when he comes home from school and initiate kisses and you tell kaa-chan whenever he doesn't want to get out of his room. Sometimes you have to wipe away his tears – those days are the hardest – but you don't think tear-wiping duty is that bad. He does it for you when you fall and you think that you should do the same.

You love your brother immensely (your first word was his name, although you couldn't pronounce it right) and you think he is amazing even when he cannot lift his head sometimes. Even on the days where he can't smile and he doesn't want to move, you still think of him as your knight in shining armour and you know he will always be there for you.

Even as you grow older and start understanding a little more, your perceptions don't change. You don't stop caring for him and you try even harder to cheer him up.

You still think he is your hero. Eternally.

You love Hinata Shouyou so very much.


End file.
